Protests vs. Burning of Rubbish In Streets

Protests vs.  Burning of Rubbish In Streets

Tbilisi citizens protest burning the rubbish in the streets and demand to impose severe sanctions to deal with the problem. People living nearby the railway have arranged protest acts for several times. They claim that it is impossible to breathe in the evening when the waste rubbish of market is burned down next to their blocks of flats.

The protestors state that they have addressed the city authority for several times to solve their problems, though unsuccessfully. They ensure that the exhausted fumes are bad for human health and may cause different diseases. “There is no a single day when a rubbish is not burned at my apartment. If you lived in the building next of which all kinds of rubbish are burned every evening and you have to breathe that, what would you do? It smells horrible. We cannot open a window to let a fresh air in because of awful smell and smoke. We cannot use our own balconies as well as dry laundry there due to dreadful stench.  We have a right to breathe, haven’t we? It is already impossible to bear the dirt. If the Mayer’s office does not solve our problems we will try to do that ourselves”, says one of the protestor.

The Mayer’s office told the Human Rights Information and Documentation Centre that it is prohibited to burn the rubbish in the street, though, the merchants do that anyway. The State Municipal Supervision Service of City Administration of Tbilisi made an official statement about prohibition of burning the leaves and the remains in the street. According to the representatives of the Mayer’s Office, they banned burning the rubbish because of exhausted poisonous substances which is dangerous to human health.

The State Municipal Supervision Service of City Administration of Tbilisi asks the district administration offices and other services under their control to prevent burning of the leaves and other waste garbage. In case of insubordination, the Supervision Service threatens to react strictly upon violators of the law. Levan Edilashvili, the Deputy Head of the State Municipal Supervision Service of City Administration of Tbilisi, says that there are different sanctions: at first a violator will be warned, then, forced to pay a fine.

The Mayer’s Office complains about the lack of the staff, which will be in charge of the supervision of the streets and responsible for imposing the sanctions against the violators, if they are find. “Due to the fact that our staff is not large, we cannot provide every park with a guard. It is good if we catch a person at the scene of violation. However, we can do nothing unless the inhabitants do not inform us. We have a ‘hot line’, which can be used by the population in order to contact us. We warned the dust persons not to burn the rubbish in the street. If they do not take into consideration our requirements they will have to pay a fine”, says Eledashvili.

The other parts of Tbilisi experience the same problems. It appeared to be quite difficult to find a person responsible for the issue as far as everybody refuses being in charge of its control. The Human Rights Information and Documentation Centre talked with Roman Metreveli, the head of Didube-Chugureti Cleaning Services, who said that all the yard-keepers as well as the dust persons of the district are warned not to burn the rubbish in the street.  He also mentioned that these are the merchants who set a fire to the rubbish. According to the information the Mayer’s Office has provided us, each day they receive about 50 telephone calls on the hot line, informing them about the above mentioned violations.

People also claim that in winter the situation is even more complicated when the merchants set a fire to keep warm.

When we contacted Didube – Chugureti district Cleaning Services and asked to comment the fact, the first thing they did was to ask the questions like “Are we the guard to watch over?” or “Do we burn the rubbish?” Afterwards, we talked to the Deputy Head of the Cleaning Service, Simon Chikvadze, who did not deny that the population experiences the problem, though; he said that the street market territory is a kind of ‘unapproachable tower’. “It is outlawed to burn the rubbish in the street. Our Staff is instructed not to do that. The street market territory is like an unapproachable tower. There are a lot of trumpets and beggars; it is difficult to control them or to find out who sets a fire to the rubbish. I am not saying that our staff is innocent, however, when we are at the place no one burns the rubbish I cannot say what happens there as we leave the place. I guess I am responsible to control that. However, it is really difficult to do, because our employees do not stay there for a night. The cases of burning the rubbish are common, though, it is hard to find a doer of it.

Eka Gulua